Inventions in the Century

by William Henry Doolittle

William George Armstrong of England, afterward Sir William, first a lawyer, but with the strongest bearing toward mechanical subjects, performed a great work in the advancement of hydraulic engineering. It is claimed that he did for hydraulic machinery, in the storage and transmission of power thereby, what Watt did for the steam engine and Bessemer did for steel. In 1838 he produced his first invention, an important improvement in the hydraulic engine. In 1840, in a letter to the Mechanics’ Magazine, he calls attention to the advantages of water as a mechanical agent and a reservoir of power, and showed how water pumped to an elevated reservoir by a steam engine might have the potential energy thus stored utilised in many advantageous ways. How, for instance, a small engine pumping continuously could thus supply many large engines working intermittently. In illustration of this idea he invented a crane, which was erected on Newcastle quay in 1846; another was constructed on the Albert dock at Liverpool, and others at other places. These cranes, adapted for the lifting and carrying of enormous loads, were worked by hydraulic pressure obtained from elevated tanks or reservoirs, as above indicated. But as a substitute for such tanks or reservoirs he invented the Accumulator. This consists of a large cast-iron cylinder fitted with a plunger, which is made to work water-tight therein by means of suitable packing. To this plunger is attached a weighted case filled with one or many tons of metal or other coarse material. Water is pumped into the cylinder until the plunger is raised to its full height within the cylinder, when the supply of water is cut off by the automatic operation of a valve. When the cranes or other apparatus to be worked thereby are in operation, water is passed from the cylinder through a small pipe which actuates the crane through hydraulic pressure. This pressure of course depends upon the weight of the plunger. Thus a pressure of from 500 to 1,000 pounds per square inch may be obtained. The descending plunger maintains a constant pressure upon the water, and the water is only pumped into the cylinder when it is required to be filled. With sensitive accumulators of this character hydraulic machinery is much used on board ships for steering them, and for loading, discharging and storing cargoes.

Water Pressure Engines or Water Motors of a great variety as to useful details have been invented to take advantage of a natural head of water from falls wherever it exists, or from artificial accumulators or from street mains. They resemble steam engines, in that the water under pressure drives a piston in a cylinder somewhat in the manner of steam. The underlying principle of this class of machinery is the admission of water under pressure to a cylinder which moves the piston and is allowed to escape on the completion of the stroke. They are divided into two great classes, single and double acting engines, accordingly as the water is admitted to one side of the piston only, or to both sides alternately. Both kinds are provided with a regulator in the form of a turn-cock, weight, or spring valve to regulate and control the flow of water and to make it continuous. They are used for furnishing a limited amount of power for working small printing presses, dental engines, organs, sewing machines, and for many other purposes where a light motor is desired.

The nineteenth century has seen a revolution in baths and accompanying closets. However useful, luxurious, and magnificent may have been the patrician baths of ancient Rome, that system, which modern investigators have found to be so complete to a certain extent, was not nor ever has been in the possession of the poor. It is within the memory of many now living everywhere how wretched was the sanitary accommodations in every populous place a generation or two ago. Now, with the modern water distribution systems and cheap bathing apparatuses which can be brought to the homes of all, with plunger, valved siphon and valved and washout closets, air valve, liquid seal, pipe inlet, and valve seal traps, and with the flushing and other hydraulic cleaning systems for drains and cesspools, little excuse can be had for want of proper sanitary regulations in any intelligent community. The result of the adoption of these modern improvements in this direction on the health of the people has been to banish plagues, curtail epidemics, and prolong for years the average duration of human life.

How multiplied are the uses to which water is put, and how completely it is being subjected to the use of man!

Rivers and pipes have their metres, so that now the velocity and volume of rivers and streams are measured and controlled, and floods prevented. The supplies for cities and for families are estimated, measured and recorded as easily as are the supplies of illuminating gas, or the flow of food from elevators.

Among the minor, but very useful inventions, are water scoops for picking up water for a train while in motion, consisting of a curved open pipe on a car, the mouth of which strikes a current of water in an open trough between the tracks and picks up and deposits in a minute a car load of water for the engine. Nozzles to emit jets of great velocity, and ball nozzles terminating in a cup in which a ball is loosely seated, and which has the effect, as it is lifted by the jet, to spread it into an umbrella-shaped spray, are of great value at fires in quenching flame and smoke.

Next to pure air to breathe we need pure water to drink, and modern discoveries and inventions have done and are doing much to help us to both. Pasteur and others have discovered and explained the germ theory of disease and to what extent it is due to impure water. Inventors have produced filters, and there is a large class of that character which render the water pure as it enters the dwelling, and fit for all domestic purposes. A specimen of the latter class is one which is attached to the main service pipe as it enters from the street. The water is first led into a cylinder stored with coarse filtering material which clears the water of mud, sediment and coarser impurities, and then is conducted into a second cylinder provided with a mass of fine grained or powdered charcoal, or some other material which has the quality of not only arresting all remaining injurious ingredients, but destroys organisms, neutralises ammonia and other deleterious matter. From thence the water is returned to the service pipe and distributed through the house. The filter may be thoroughly cleansed by reversing the movement of the water, and carrying it off through a drain pipe until it runs clear and sweet, whereupon the water is turned in its normal course through the filter and house.

In a very recent report of General J. M. Wilson, Chief of Engineers, U.S.A., the subject of filtration of water, and especially of public water supplies in England, the United States, and on the Continent, is very thoroughly treated, and the conclusion arrived at there is that the system termed “the American,” or mechanical system, is the most successful one.

This consists, first, in leading the water into one or more reservoirs, then coagulating suspended matter in the water by the use of the sulphate of alumina, and then allowing the water to flow through a body of coarse sand, by which the coagulated aluminated matter is caught and held in the interstices of the sand, and the bacteria arrested. All objectionable matter is thus arrested by the surface portion of the sand body, which portion is from time to time scraped off, and the whole sand mass occasionally washed out by upward currents of water forced through the same.

By this system great rapidity of filtration is obtained, the rate being 120,000,000 gallons a day per acre.